Carlton coach Michael Voss says Marc Pittonet will not return to AFL action on Friday night against the Cats despite recovering from a long-term finger injury sustained in the Round 10 loss to Sydney.
He and forward David Cuningham are both available to play but will make their way back through the VFL.
Voss was frank in his response to whether these two will line up Friday night:
"Probably not. No."
"They're available to play so they'll obviously take their turn in the VFL"
A glaring concern for the Blues is how to quell dynamic key forward Jeremy Cameron, who many believe to be the best player in the competition and who notably enjoys playing Carlton, having bagged six goals, 25 disposals and five goals, 17 touches in his last two meetings with them.
Caleb Marchbank was the name presented to the Carlton as a possible matchup, with Voss responding: "Yeah possibly, I won't declare all of it."
"He's a genuine possibility and obviously Cameron's done particularly well against us the last couple of times"
"They've got a lot of threats that are forward of the ball... we can't focus all our energy on one person and there's a system we want to make sure we pay attention to"
Tall forward Tom Hawkins along with smalls Tyson Stengle and Gryan Miers are likely the forward threats he is referring to, capable of getting off the chain and contributing a damaging amount to the scoreboard.
Miers has been particularly valuable to their forward transition this season, with many labelling him a "must-tag" player during Geelong's red-hot start to the season.
Geelong's win over Carlton earlier this year took their tally to an unbeaten 6-0. While they have since fallen, the Carlton coach believes their method hasn't, and is conscious of who may be added to help them return to their early-season form.
"There's a fair bit you can take out of it, there's still some things that they're doing similar," Voss noted.
"Looks like Dangerfield's back.
"We're always evolving as a team but there's enough to go on to see what they did do in that game.
"In that particular game we didn't have a bias towards our defence and the game became quite a shoot-out... we were too easy to score against on that particular night.
"We've had to work harder to correct that and make sure we defend harder for longer."
It seems the Blues will try to create more of a low-scoring scrap than a high-octane shoot-out, and the selection of their small forwards may indicate which style they'll prefer to adopt; selecting the pressure-first Owies and Durdin options, or the forward-flare Fantasia, Motlop options.
"They're all fit and available," Voss said regarding his crop of smalls.
"The fact that these guys are coming back, what we hope is it's creating some internal competition."
Another intriguing aspect of the match will be whether Carlton continue with their newfound success in the tagging game, utilising Alex Cincotta to shut down opposing threats, like Bomber Zach Merrett who he kept to 21 disposals.
100 per cent effort, 100 per cent of the time.
That's what we love about the re-signed Alex Cincotta ๐ pic.twitter.com/lQMNSlCp1R
— Carlton FC (@CarltonFC) June 12, 2024
With aforementioned stars, Dangerfield returning and Miers on watch, the Blues may be inclined to go after intercepter Tom Stewart, who has been susceptible to unwanted attention in recent weeks.
Asked if they've picked an option to go after, Voss hinted toward an answer: "We have. We won't declare the one we've taken... (but) that's been quite useful for us."
"Clearly we've had a bias to look at the midfielder. I think we still have that bias."
Friday night shapes as the clear match of the round, and a litmus test for both teams looking to stake their claim amongst the top four contenders destined to challenge Sydney for premiership success.
